TAMPA BAY IN THE A.L.?; NORTHERN VA SEARCHES FOR TEAM NAME

Vince Naimoli, head of the group trying to bring a MLB
expansion team to Tampa Bay, assumes that if both expansion teams
are put in the same league, they would be in the NL. But if they
split the teams, Naimoli believes Tampa will go to the AL (Bill
Chastain, TAMPA TRIBUNE, 2/25). In New York, Bill Madden writes,
"At long last, Tampa Bay is going to get its baseball team. It
has taken no less than a half-dozen jiltings at the altar -- and
a like amount of threatened lawsuits -- but there will be major-
league baseball at the Thunderdome" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 2/26).
THE NAME SEARCH: In VA, the two investor groups bidding for
an expansion team are trying decide on a team name. The two
groups have until Wednesday "to submit one name each" to MLB
officials. The Capital Baseball Group Inc. has "all but settled"
on the Virginia Generals. Some of the names being considered by
Virginia Baseball Group, considered MLB's favorite: Fury,
Diamonds, Monuments, Grey Sox, and Bats (Eric Lipton, WASHINGTON
POST, 2/26).